Final Lesson

One kiss means marriage...You don’t mind if I have a mistress, do you?
(part of a series, beginning with 'Lessons in French Courtship')

Some days, I’m more of a sucker than others. If I’m in a somewhat normal setting (a café, a party, a dinner), I’ll buy into the French charm. Of course, the normal rules still apply. The suitor must be within two years of my own age. He should have intelligent things to say, have at least one interest other than soccer, and know how to spell. He must not use the words charming, caress, or special moment.

These rules are not foolproof. After giving out my number, I’ve been on lots of bad dates. I’ve learned, though, to be very careful on these dates. For in France, one kiss seals the deal. You become Instant Girlfriend. So I’d better be sure.

One of many lapses in my otherwise good judgment was Clément, a wine connoisseur from Lyon. I’d met him at a bar with my friend Sabine, where the two of us had been sitting at a table for four. Claude and Clément asked to join us. We were happy for the company and enjoyed the opportunity to practice our French. They bought us drinks and took us to what must have been the most unpopular dance club in Paris. Soon it became clear that I was with Clément and Sabine was with Claude. At the end of the night, we all programmed each other’s numbers into our cell phones and caught the first metro home.

Back then, in my early days here, I made the mistake of equating French-speaking with intelligent. It takes awhile longer for someone’s true colors to show when he’s not speaking your native tongue.

Though I’d spoken with Clément on the phone many times during the interim, I didn’t realize until we were tête-à-tête again that—there’s no way to put this nicely—he was dumb. And he knew it.

For our first date, I’d chosen a little café not too far from where I used to live. He brought me a nice bottle of wine and spent most of the evening describing the likeness of the wine’s body to my own. I was not impressed. I tried to steer the conversation in other directions, but when exploring any of these other directions, he’d preface his sentence with, “Well, I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but…”. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I had to end the date, and soon.

But he wouldn’t leave. We stood on the corner next to the cabstand, him begging me to get in the cab with him, me begging him to get in the cab without me. He tried, “What if I just threw you in the cab?” Noting that this made me remarkably uncomfortable, he concluded, “Well, I’m not getting in the cab without a kiss. Tonight was wonderful, and I’m not leaving without a souvenir.”

I had no choice. I lived in the building next door, so couldn’t feasibly walk away. He would surely follow me. So I quickly moved in for a two-millisecond, tight-lipped kiss. He grinned like a buffoon and magically backed into the rear seat of the cab.

Over the next week, I ignored countless phone and text messages. When I finally called him back from a payphone in the metro, I had to spend forty-five minutes detailing all the reasons why I didn’t want to see him again. Angry and confused, he finally shouted before hanging up on me, “Then why did you kiss me? It’s over! I’m breaking up with you!”

I stood a moment with the silent phone. He was breaking up with me? We’d only been on one extremely unsuccessful date.

You might think that this provides just one example, that Clément was simply ridiculous. But my host sister explained to me that this was the norm. That first kiss was the official seal of the relationship. She suggested that I might owe Clément an apology.

Matt recently experienced this same phenomenon. After two dates with Caroline, he kissed her before she boarded a metro home. A week later, he found himself at a dinner with ten of her closest friends. She held his hand on the table top, presented him as her boyfriend, and proudly stated that they’d been dating for weeks.

Poor Caroline. She didn’t realize that this was the kiss of death for Matt. He wasn’t ready to commit, and he didn’t know he had. After a week of ignoring phone and text messages including I just read a scary book. Call me!, he received the final, furious word from Caroline: If they’re all like you—winding a girl up and then throwing her away like a dirty sock—it’s no wonder that people hate Americans. Matt felt guilty, but we toasted our glasses to dirty socks and misinterpreted kisses. Here’s to cross-cultural dating.

(Back to Intro)
(Back to Lesson One)
(Back to Lesson Two)
(Back to Lesson Three)
(Back to Lesson Four)